The boys, however, had strong meat provided for them in such tales as 'Jack and the Giants,' &c. Steele, in _Tatler_ 95, says, speaking of a little boy of eight years old, 'I perceived him a very great historian in "Æsop's Fables," but he frankly declared to me his mind "that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true," for which reason I found he had very much turned his studies for about a twelvemonth past unto the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other historians of that age.... He would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickerthrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George for being the champion of England.... I was extolling his accomplishments, when his mother told me that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he. "Betty," says she, "deals chiefly in Fairies and Sprights; and sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed."' [Illustration: 'Oh, Raree Show.'] In all probability the child learned his letters in the first instance from a 'Hornbook,' such as were then commonly used and sold--as the following excerpt from an advertisement shows: 'Joseph Hazard at the Bible, in Stationers Court, near Ludgate, sells ... Spelling books, Primers, _Hornbooks_, &c.' Hornbooks are now very scarce indeed, and the man lucky enough to possess a genuine one must feel proud of his rarity. It consisted of a small sheet of paper, generally about 4 in. × 3 in. or so--sometimes smaller--on which was printed the alphabet, both in capitals and small text, the vowels, and a few simple combinations, such as ab, eb, ib, ob, ub,--ba, be, bi, bo, bu, &c., and the Lord's Prayer. This was laid on a flat piece of board with a roughly shaped handle, and covered with a thin plate of horn, fastened to the board by copper tacks driven through an edging of thin copper. It therefore would stand a vast amount of rough usage before it would be destroyed--a fact of great importance in elementary education. [Illustration: 'Ripe Strawberryes!'] [Illustration: 'Six Pence a Pound Fair Cherryes!']